Ferguson Farm-stay

Dear Matthew

At the start of May we visited Ferguson Farm-stay with Camp Autism for a weekend. It was a lovely opportunity for you to spend time with your cousins and to get to experience farm-life.

 

 

We travelled down to Ferguson Valley on the Friday after your dad and I had finished work and drove through some wild weather but eventually arrived and checked into our chalet, which was so cute and homely.

In the morning you got to take part in feeding the farm animals. You fed the goats, pigs, chooks, kangaroo, emu and rabbit (you especially loved tormenting the rabbits and trying to kick the chooks).

 

 

You then got to sit on a big digger with your cousin Ella which you loved and got to ride the pony before we went on a ride in a trailer on the back of the tractor to feed the cows.

 

 

 



Afterwards we headed about 20 minutes down the road to Gnomesville and were overwhelmed by the thousands of gnomes there. We added our own gnome and you had fun walking through this quacky, awesome place.

 

For lunch we drove down the road to the Moody Cow brewery and for a little while before the rain set in you got to play on the playground and blow up castle. We had a delicious lunch before heading to the general store at Dardenup because your mum had brought a precarious amount of baby wipes for the weekend.  

 

In the afternoon we patted/tormented more animals back at the farm. Unfortunately your mum made the call to let you back into the goat pen and you were head butted by a goat! I freaked out and thought you'd be suffering from internal bleeding for sure but turns out you were fine and wanted to go straight back to patting them! Resilient much?! :)

 

In the evening you and your dad had fun sliding down one of the farm hills on boogie boards and playing bocce before you zonked out from such a big day.  

 

 

 

 

 

In the morning on Sunday before we headed home you had a quick play with your cousins on the trampoline and play equipment. I snapped the beautiful shots above of you looking out on the gorgeous pastures (you love that plane by the way) and felt so joy-filled. You are the best kid to travel with (despite hating the car during your early days) and you made the trip so, so fun.

 

Love you my darling boy,

 

Mum xxx



Great-Grandad's 80th

Dear Matthew

The weekend before last we celebrated your great-grandfather's 80th birthday down at his and nanna's house in Mandurah. It was a great opportunity to catch up with my cousins, many of whom I hadn't seen in years, and to meet their children (your first cousins once removed? Or maybe your second or third cousins, I'm not sure).

Coincidentally, many of my cousins also have little boys, so you were in your element having fun with them. In fact, the first six great-grandkids on this side of the family were all boys before the first girl arrived. Crazy! But it meant you had some great new friends and toys to play with.

My favourite part of the lunch was when we sang happy birthday to your great-grandad and four of the oldest boys (including yourself) insisted on helping blow out the candles! It was gorgeous! It was also lovely to hear nanna and grandad talk about their love for each other, without which most of the people at the lunch wouldn't even be alive. Nanna also spoilt you with chocolates despite my best efforts to stop this.

I'm so pleased you have two sets of great-grandparents alive still, hopefully you grow old enough soon to store some memories of them. I know I only have a few odd ones of my great-grandmothers (nanna and grandad's mothers who we called big-nanna and little-nanna) and I treasure them.

Love you little Matthew,

Mum xxx